Holy or Broken
by a.e. spencer
Summary: she knew the kind of man that he was. LaurenJack.


_Holy or Broken_  
**by** airebella e. spencer  
**disclaimer**: not mine. never was.  
**rated**: R  
**summary**: she knew the kind of man that he was. Lauren/Jack.  
**notes**: written for Nicola in response to the Lauren fic-a-thon. Thanks to Tahlia for beta.

"Because you took advantage of a sinner  
Because you took advantage  
Because you took  
Because you took advantage of my disadvantage" - Vladimir Nabokov

* * *

It's something that flows through her blood.

Maybe was in the air, but she could smell the man that he was a mile away. The women in her family, all of them, were built with this odd sort of gift. She watched him walk away from her and she couldn't help but smile.

Yes, she knew the kind of man that he was.

* * *

****

**i.** She found him in fragments. The life of Michael Vaughn was delivered to her in a box. She keeps their memories there.

The stain is a faded grey - black-and-white surveillance doesn't show the sallow brown hugging the hem of her blouse. He almost didn't notice as they collided, hot coffee washing over his hands. He began to pay attention, just slightly, helping her pick up the coffee colored paperwork off of the pavement. A smile, in the middle of an apology, and he keeps on walking.

Two weeks later, she runs into him and a dog at four in the morning. Sweat makes her hair stick to her neck in thin tendrils, and as he repeats her phone number to himself she thinks its a bit humid for May. He promises not to spill her coffee this time.

She wears something A-line on their first date. During dinner, she sips the wine he has poured for her, listening to varied versions of his childhood in French (she needs the practice). She can see a shadow of something in his eyes, something hiding behind the green and the grass he saves for someone else.

He'll walk her right to her front door.

It will be hot, one Tuesday three weeks later. She'll meet him for lunch on the corner of Figueroa and Third, a hole in the wall where the grease dripping out of the tacos tastes like the woman in the kitchen really means it. Somewhere between Beaudry and Wilshire he turns the car around. They'll barely make it inside.

His mattress is bare, sheets scattered on the floor. It won't matter; his lips on her neck are hungry, desperation alive in the movements of his hands. The cold of the hardwood floors against her ass and his fingers inside her are like a hallelujah.

She trips over his shoes on the way out.

* * *

The air is sticky as she steps inside. Smells a bit like thunder.

It's dark inside: the wood, the floors, the walls, his face. She dresses in black, like a bad cliche. She has to blink rapidly to help her eyes adjust. Footsteps sound in the hall, a few feet forward by the outline of a lampshade.

"You're late," she says, just as fingers switch on the floor lamp at the end of the hallway.

"I had business to attend to."

Jack Bristow is a creature of habit. When he comes home at night he moves through the rooms of the bottom floor of his house turning on lights, one by one. In the den, he pours himself a whiskey sour on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays. If he's hungry, something warms in the oven as he takes shower, water scalding the scars on his back.

Today is Wednesday. He takes a long sip of vodka straight from the bottle; she takes her gin with pineapple juice. The glass begins to sweat immediately after she places it on the table.

"I know your secret."

* * *

****

**ii**. She paints him a portrait. She saves a spot for him. In the valley between her hips, his fingers tracing the curves of bone. This place is his.

There are certain times in the morning when she forgets who she is. Lauren is the name she chose. The rise and fall of his chest calms her (sometimes, for just a moment, she forgets that she was never supposed to love him). The moment passes as she rolls away.

One month, she's late. She pictures green eyes and the thought makes her nauseous. Seeing the sights of her mother, an unwanted child growing within her. This child will never be hers.

She washed the thought around in her mouth, imagining the feel of a child in her arms that looks like him and belongs to someone else. Proof of her trangression. Her blood will run through its veins, along with pride. Its father is a different sort of man.

She tells him one day over dinner. He's talking about hockey as she swirls her wine in a full glass. Tickets in a box seat, weekend with the boys. His jaw, her cheeks, she'll create a portrait in her mind. Still warm from her body, ten fingers and ten toes. She waits for the opportunity, the pinch of a contraction gripping the small of her back. He'll stop to swallow.

"Michael, I'm pregnant."

It's something she's not expecting, the surprise and regret mixed together on his face. He'll sit back and repeat the idea to himself, over and over. He is naive in expecting that this wouldn't happen; she is naive to let it.

"When?"

She laughs, a sound low from the back of her throat. "If you'd really like something specific-"

"No. That's not what I meant."

She gets up and clears the dishes from the table. With her back to him she turns on the faucet and rinses each dish carefully, watching the untouched wine flow out of her cup. He comes up from behind her, slipping his hands through her arms and placing them tentatively on her stomach. It's awkward.

"I went to the doctor a week ago. I thought maybe it was a false alarm."

(False, no. False isn't fumbling in the stall of a filthy bathroom, peeing on a stick and hoping to God that this was just a mistake. False isn't fifty miles out of town in a secure facility, on paper. Shame, pink on her cheeks. She's become her mother after all.)

Two months have past, and her stomach has rounded. The seams of her pants begin to pull a bit- she spends her mornings with her head resting against porcelain. He tells people she's beginning to glow, just a bit. The pride in his voice feels raw in her mouth.

Maybe this is why he has to walk in and see her crying in the bathtub. He'll see the blood on the sheets, connect the dots for himself.

Relief mixes with salt as the tears run down her cheeks.

* * *

Something in her makes Jack Bristow curious. She can see it in his eyes, feel it in his handshake. Something different about this man- he acts as if there is something he should remember but can't.

There's something in all Derevko women that is the same. _Fool him once, shame on you. Fool him twice, shame on him._

Sydney resurfaces in Hong Kong the day he begins to realize this. He becomes familiar with her quirks and mannerisms; stares as she tucks her hair behind her ear before each brief.

Through a haze of alcohol, he'll find it amusing that they taste the same. He'll wonder why he never saw it sooner.

* * *

****

**iii**. She chokes on a little white lie. Her husband was never hers.

They send her a sign, and it's time to go.

"I'll be back," she whispers gently. He won't remember.

* * *

She's sitting in a safehouse near the ocean. The air smells like salt, making her stomach turn. The walls are white and this feels like something familiar.

The catch is that she doesn't have a child to kiss goodnight.

The room is as plain as possible without being empty. The wrought-iron bed against the north wall is dressed, sheets starched and extra blankets resting in the corner. There is an off-white couch in the southeast corner; just above it, hanging on the wall, is a poorly rendered picture of a schooner at sea. It's slightly crooked, which irritates her. She assumes it's that way for a reason.

There is a balcony that overlooks the ocean. She stands, her forehead pressed to the glass of the door. Her reflection is a comfort.

She's there for five days before she gets word. She's needed somewhere else.

* * *

"I know what you are."

She has her bare back to him, standing right above the nearly empty flash of gin. The pineapple juice makes her fingers sticky. "You could never begin to know."

The sheet has fallen down to her hips; she wriggles with the glass of gin in her hands to pull it up past her breasts. Smug is the look on his face as he watches her movements, a bit of something she can't specify in his eyes.

"She was my wife. For ten years, she was my wife."

"That doesn't mean anything."

He looks at her, closes his mouth to change direction. Thunder crashes outside their window as he moves to stand behind her. His hand, right under the bloom of her neck, fingers pressed tight. His breath is heavy with vodka against her cheek.

"You thought you could hide it. You can't."

His grip tightens around her neck and her temples pound. Thump-thump-thump. The sheet begins to slip down to graze the top of her nipple. He runs his hand down her arm and takes the glass away, placing it on the table in front of them. She squirms with her legs now.

"What I'm wondering now is whether or not I should kill you." He holds her wrists together firmly in one hand, pushing them into her back. The corners of her eyes begin to feel glossy. Feels like the rain is washing into her ears.

The room is black for a second before he lets go. "No. That's your husband's job."

He presses his mouth to hers, teeth ripping into her lower lip. A battle for control, their lips swollen and purple. The mix of vodka and blood lingers on the tip of her tongue. He drinks the rest of her gin as he walks away.

[fin]


End file.
